PUTRAJAYA (Sept 8, 2009): It is the end of the road for world fast food chain McDonald's Corporation's battle for exclusivity to use the 'Mc' trademark after it failed to stop local Indian restaurant McCurry Restaurant (KL) Sdn Bhd from using the prefix.

McCurry restaurant owner, AMSP Suppiah accompanied by his wife Kanageswarry smiles after leaving the courtroom in Putrajaya.

The Federal Court comprising Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Arifin Zakaria and Federal Court Judges Datuk Wira Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff and Datuk James Foong today unanimously dismissed McDonald's application for leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal's findings over the usage of the prefix 'Mc', on the grounds that the questions posed by McDonald's in the application were not properly framed.

Justice Arifin also ordered McDonald's to pay RM10,000 cost to McCurry which has an outlet in Jalan Ipoh in Kuala Lumpur.

The two questions framed by McDonald's were that once the prefix 'Mc' was used by McCurry, the public in their mind, would associate McCurry with McDonald's; and the usage of 'Mc' would reduced the important of 'Mc' to McDonald's.

After the decision, McCurry's director AMSP Suppiah, 55, told the media that he was very happy and relieved because the dispute over the usage of the prefix 'Mc' had been settled.

He said McCurry which opened in 2001 was running the business based on Indian food and had nothing to do with McDonald's food.

McDonald's filed a leave application to appeal after the Court of Appeal on April 29 ruled it was wrong to assume that McDonald's had a monopoly on the use of the prefix 'Mc'.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court on Sept 7, 2006, ruled in favour of McDonald's but McCurry took the fight to the Court of Appeal.

McDonald's, in its statement of claim, said it created the prefix 'Mc' as a trademark and that with the usage of the prefix 'Mc', together with the word 'Curry', McCurry Restaurant, which was formerly known as Restoran Penang Curry House (KL) Sdn Bhd, had misrepresented itself as being associated with McDonald's business.

McCurry Restaurant, in its defence, contended that McDonald's could not claim monopoly or exclusive rights to the use of the prefix 'Mc', as that prefix was extensively used around the world as surnames, particularly by people of Scottish origin.

At the outset, McCurry's counsel Sri Dev Nair informed the court that the NTV7 television station had aired a question asking for responses via the short-messaging system (sms) as to whether the 'Mc' trademark used by McCurry had deceived the public.

Sri Dev said the sms would be damaging to his client and asked the court to send a message to the media as well as to the public over the sms because the case had not been disposed off.

However, Justice Arifin said he had only heard of the matter this morning through Sri Dev and without any evidence produced in court, it was insufficient for the court to make any order.

Justice Arifin then advised Sri Dev to get instructions from his client.

At the proceedings, after McDonald's counsel S.F.Wong read out the two questions to court, Sri Dev submitted that McDonald's failed to show its questions were related to the court of appeal's findings.

Hence, he said the questions did not came under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and that the application should be dismissed. - Bernama